


Marriage Bed

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Halfway at any rate, Intercrural Sex, Lingerie, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 20:45:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19027594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Crowley takes Aziraphale out on what he really hopes might be a romantic date, but Aziraphale winds up delivering all the surprises.





	Marriage Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DictionaryWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/gifts).



> Happy Birthday.  
> A combination of things, from masculine feelings about lingerie, to nights at the opera, to miscommunications, to thigh-fucking, which I hope will all come together into something pleasing.

    They have a date to the opera-- Salome, Crowley had waved the tickets beneath his nose over lunch two days previous, and Aziraphale’s heart had fluttered a bit… that same opera Crowley had first taken him to when he was apologizing for having spent a century off in bed. It was brand new at the time and he’d been so excited to see it… he’d dressed up, and Crowley had pulled up in the most elegant coach… it had been such a lovely night, they’d had a private box and all, and Crowley so attentive, so eager to make up for having hurt him by his absence-- and he had been hurt! But there had been something which tore at his heart, at learning Crowley hadn’t thought he would be missed when he went back to bed.

 

    They have a date to the opera, and Aziraphale hasn’t felt so giddy over an evening out in some time. Theirs is… an odd relationship, he supposes. They are bound to each other, they have been for going on nine hundred seventy-odd years, and before that of course… well, it hadn’t been formalized, but they had certainly been rather friendlier than either side might have liked. There are words Crowley hasn’t said, and hasn’t wanted to hear overmuch. They don’t live together, on paper, but Crowley often sleeps in Aziraphale’s bed or on his sofa. They’ve had to deal with quite the situation to work around, being on opposite sides, and yet they’ve… they have dealt with it. And now… everything is new, the scrutiny feels so much less, there’s not the sense of lurking danger he’s always felt, when they got too close. Now, something in him flutters whenever they meet, even though nothing about their little dates has changed. Is it silly, to feel this way nearly a thousand years down the line? Perhaps so.

 

    They have a date to the opera, and though Aziraphale does not expect Crowley to see them-- he never has before, at any rate-- he considers it important to choose the right undergarments. The pale blue satin high-waisted brief, with the ivory mesh panels, stretched very comfortably over his hips. It smooths the hanging swell of his belly, contains it, but doesn’t do anything to minimize the appearance of the figure he cuts-- there’s been a trend, though he wouldn’t know at what point in the century it began, for ‘shapewear’, but Aziraphale is content with his shape on the whole. He’s content with his size, at any rate. Any good comfortable undergarment would certainly hold things in place a bit without squeezing him into some other silhouette, in his opinion.

 

    He likes the way he looks in them, there’s a satisfaction in seeing his reflection in the mirror. The color, the fabric, the way it hugs him here, the modest cut combined with the glimpse of skin… Were he inclined to be a more sexual being than he is, he’s not sure how his feelings would change, if they would, but as it is, he likes having this for himself. Likes the lace trim.

 

    He used to wear silk and lace all the time! The longer such things had been out of fashion, the more they were weeded from his wardrobe, but he misses them. They were… little luxuries. They made him feel good. They made him happy. Now, now that men’s shirts no longer drip with lace, now that silk suits with knee-length breeches and delicate hose are not the norm, he has to hide these things away a bit.

 

    The stockings nowadays, though… he will say for them, he likes that they stay up on their own, and he needn’t fuss with ribbon garters. Although… he’d bought himself a pair with pale blue bows at the backs of the bands, they come up to mid-thigh. They hug him so much more smoothly than hose used to back in the day. He does love the attractive lines of them.

 

    He’s in nothing more than that when Crowley lets himself in, and stops in the doorway.

 

    “Oh-- hullo, dear, you’re early.”

 

    “Er. Ah. Yes-- I-- I thought we might… we might have a quick bite before the opera, but you’re, you’re not dressed.”

 

    “I’ll hurry it up, shall I?” Aziraphale smiles, going for his wardrobe. His dove grey tuxedo, the white tie… yes, it is a bit formal, but oh… for Salome, he couldn’t bear to wear some ordinary suit. The pearl studs… a set of cufflinks Crowley once gifted him. He dresses quickly, while Crowley watches him from the bedroom doorway still.

 

    He does miss his opera pumps-- they’re not in good enough repair, can’t even be repaired at this point, though he’s kept them. He’d looked for another pair when they did give up the ghost, only to discover that pumps had become rather higher and more pointy, and sized for women, in the time since he’d last needed to buy them. No longer the silk or velvet dress slipper with the sensible heel and the big bow-- or patent leather, though Aziraphale had preferred velvet, himself. Velvet with a big grosgrain ribbon bow, black on black… Crowley’s had been a beautiful iridescent black snakeskin, much as his own scales, Aziraphale remembers-- they’d had deep red bows. Aziraphale’s had been quilted on the inside, though they’ve long since lost any real padding, along with the great bare spots in the pile of the velvet, the worn-down heels and soles, the fraying ribbon…

 

    Well… he has other shoes that are suitable enough, he supposes. Still, sometimes he misses the old days. He misses the grandeur of it. He and Crowley will stand out among the modern crowd, but… Crowley, too, has dressed up especially. Not the way he would have a century ago, but in a lovely scarlet red tuxedo, black shirt, black tie… iridescent black snakeskin loafers, almost like…

 

    Crowley produces a boutonniere with a wave of his hand-- while he hadn’t carried it with him, and yet Aziraphale feels as if it’s real, not created, or the flower at least is real.

 

    “How you treat me.” He shakes his head, aglow with happiness as Crowley affixes the green carnation in place. “Thank you.”

 

    They’re far too well-dressed for the place Crowley takes him instead of merely going for the opera house’s champagne bar, though it is elegant, and Crowley orders sushi, caviar, and champagne. Winds up pushing half his caviar on Aziraphale to finish.

 

    “You gentlemen must have an evening ahead of you.” The bartender says.

 

    “He’s taking me to the opera.” Aziraphale beams, hand lingering a moment on Crowley’s arm. “We haven’t been in ages-- have we, my dear?”

 

    “No, not since Faust, and that one was my pick. Thought you’d prefer Salome.” He shrugs, with his half-anxious little grin. “Still your favorite?”

 

    “Of course it is. But you do know me…”

 

    “I do.” Crowley offers his arm.

 

    It is a pleasure, as it always has been, to be paraded at his side. To have Crowley take his arm back only that he might open a door, his hand at the small of Aziraphale’s back, his whole demeanor so _attentive_. That’s one thing Aziraphale could never fault him for-- all the times he’s taken him anywhere, be it white tie or a walk in the park, he is always attentive, always focused on him… and always, Aziraphale feels special, when they’re out together-- not just because of Crowley’s attention, but because the way Crowley behaves as though Aziraphale might be the focus of the whole room’s attention. The way he always seems to preen at his side, proud to be out with him, and now that there’s not so much worrying about who might catch them, he’s been prouder still.

 

    It’s been a dream. The whole world since the day it didn’t end has just been a _dream_.

 

    “I bought out the box.” Crowley whispers, when they arrive at Covent Garden.

 

    “Oh, my dear, but that must have been so much!”

 

    “We had a private box before.”

 

    “Well… yes…” He nods, turning towards Crowley. There’s a moment where he very nearly kisses him, and stops. Crowley has never indicated any desire to be kissed, has always been happy to sprawl against him when in the mood for closeness, and not ask for more, but… would he mind it?  “Oh-- you old serpent, you really do spoil me sometimes!”

 

    “Just tempting you into a good time.” Crowley smiles, though the cool of it falters for just a split second.

 

    Only once they’re seated does Crowley remove his glasses, and turn to Aziraphale, his expression open and vulnerable.

 

    “Dear?” Aziraphale prompts, reaching out to him. Crowley takes his hand, folds both his own around it, and Aziraphale squeezes.

 

    “I… I wanted to ask, when I got us the tickets-- I wanted to make it clear that… that I’d hoped this might be a-- a romantic date?”

 

    “Well, so it is.” Aziraphale beams, reaching up with his free hand to cup Crowley’s cheek. “Oh, Crowley… oh, my darling dear.”

 

    “I wanted to do that before I saw your undies. For the record.”

 

    Aziraphale’s cheeks go a bit pink, and he bites his lip and fails not to smile even brighter. “But you are still thinking about them?”

 

    “Well…” He glances away, but steels himself after a moment, kissing Aziraphale’s hand before leaning in to whisper in his ear. “It was… enlightening. Women’s undies, I wouldn’t have imagined.”

 

    “They’re not _women’s_ , they’re _mine_.” Aziraphale whispers back. “They’re more comfortable. Men’s are so… roomy.”

 

    “They do make tighter ones for men.”

 

    “Yes, but they still have… _room_. I don’t want to wander around with an empty pocket where one’s bits are supposed to go, Crowley, I haven’t bothered with having any in a long time.”

 

    “Why not? Bits are fun.”

 

    “Yes, well, you’ve never asked me to, have you?” He says mildly, and takes some pleasure in seeing Crowley’s jaw drop, out of the corner of his eye.

 

    “I could have asked?”

 

    “Yes-- I assumed you didn’t want…”

 

    “No, no, I-- I just thought _you_ wouldn’t want-- I could have just asked you, you’d have said yes?”

 

    “Well… not right at the start, love, but… we did _ally_ ourselves, after all. Any time since then, I would have.”

 

    “I could have had you in _ten-twenty_?”

 

    “Of course. Ah-- you _wicked_ beast, I know what you’re about to ask, and _no_. I am going to watch my favorite opera.”

 

    “Angel, I’ve waited more than nine hundred _years_ for you…”

 

    “You can wait a couple more hours, then. Oh, don’t pout… Soon enough, and forevermore. You might’ve asked.”

 

    “ _You_ might’ve asked.” Crowley hisses, but he doesn’t protest further, only kisses Aziraphale’s hand once more, before settling into his seat with his attention returned to the stage.

 

    That’s that, except of course Aziraphale now finds he can think of nothing else, keeps imagining his hand stealing into Crowley’s lap, imagines Crowley kneeling between his thighs, imagines finding himself bent over the balcony…

 

    He’s never going to be able to listen to the score again without thinking about having sex… Nine hundred and seventy years he’s barely given it a thought, but now that he knows Crowley _wants_ it… that they’d both been terribly silly creatures, assuming the other wouldn’t be at all sexual!

 

    He doesn’t suggest they go someplace for dessert, and neither does Crowley, when the opera is over. They go straight back to his place, nerves alight with the knowledge of what’s to come.

 

    Aziraphale mostly uses his flat for storage, to have a place to change clothes, and sometimes for a change of scenery when he’s only going to settle into a chair to read anyhow. He reads upstairs when Crowley is sleeping in his bed, likes to sit over him and keep watch… If he notices him in a nightmare, he soothes it, if he sees he’s about to wake, he makes tea. If it’s been a few days and he’s ready to stretch his legs and do something other than read, he wakes him. He’s lain in his bed before, when Crowley hasn’t been there, to try and find the appeal, or to read in a different position. This, though…

 

    This is new.

 

    “Finally sharing the marriage bed, I suppose.” He says, as Crowley pulls into his spot. “Normally I just sit beside you…”

 

    “Marriage bed.” Crowley chuckles softly. “Isn’t there usually a wedding first?”

 

    “Well who would we have invited?”

 

    Crowley stops, and turns very slowly, the Bentley’s purr dying away.

 

    “Who would we have invited?” He repeats, also very slowly.

 

    “I certainly didn’t know anybody but you.”

 

    “Angel… didn’t know anybody but me _when_?”

 

    “Ten-twenty.” He laughs, but it stops itself in his throat. “When we were married.”

 

    “ _Marr_ \-- When-- What?”

 

    “I know, I know, it was a practical match at the time, but-- it’s _come_ to mean more. And… practical or not, I’d have… I’d have said yes. There was always the feeling it… that the two of us…”

 

    “Yeah-- I just… _Married_. All this time… Aziraphale… have I been a poor husband to you?”

 

    “Of course not.”

 

    “Because I always thought… it was business.”

 

    “Crowley, it was the eleventh century, of _course_ it was business. Just like any other marriage.” This time the laugh is less nervous, unstifled. He reaches out, fingertips skating over Crowley’s jaw, and Crowley catches his hand, kissing the heel of it, kissing his wrist, and with such a passion behind it… “Oh… darling old thing, you’re a _lovely_ husband.”

 

    “I haven’t done any husbandly things for you…”

 

    “Yes you have. You take me out. You always treat me very well when you do. And you get me little things just because I’d like them… you take very good care of me. You open the chutney and the lemon curd on picnics, when the jars stick. You… you make me feel _special_. Will you come inside?”

 

    “ _Oh, yes_.” Crowley whispers into his sleeve, his breath hot, his tongue flicking out over the pulse-- at least, it usually acts as one, though every so often the portion of Aziraphale’s unconscious devoted to keeping his heart beating gets too tied up in something else and his organs just sit there doing nothing until he realizes and kicks it all back on again.

 

    Crowley had once referred to it as ‘cute’, only to quickly correct himself and say it was ‘funny’, actually, how Aziraphale sometimes forgot to have a heartbeat. He had been delighted to discover that the promise of dessert would start it back up again.

 

    His heart is certainly working overtime now, with the promise of going to bed with Crowley. After over nine hundred years… the feelings that flood him at the thought, he can hardly sort through. Although he suspects that once he has some genitalia in place, those feelings will at least have some place to _go_.

 

    Not that he’d need to, to feel satisfied, he thinks. There are a lot of ways for satisfaction to come about, and a lot of ways to feel wonderful. But… he will. He wants to try now, now that they’re on the same page.

 

    “You’re a lovely husband.” Aziraphale repeats, soft. “I’m glad you’re mine.”

 

    “Even if I’ve spent the last… near to a thousand years not knowing it?”

 

    “Even so. You’ve still been mine.”

 

    “Well that is true.” He leans into Aziraphale’s hand a moment, smiling at him. “Always been that. You’re too good for me.”

 

    “I’m not a jot so.”

 

    Crowley laughs at that, and kisses his hand one more time before hopping out of the car to get the passenger side door.

 

    They rather hurry each other up the stairs and back to the bedroom.

 

    “I want to tear your clothes off…” Crowley says, practically a growl, as he slowly and gently removes Aziraphale’s bow tie from his person. “I want to vanish them to another bloody plane of existence. I want to do away with them immediately.”

 

    He does none of that. He undresses Aziraphale with an aching slowness. He attacks his throat with kisses once it’s bared, but his hands never speed, never lose their care. He drops each loosely-folded article onto the bed, and lets Aziraphale’s trousers pool around his ankles, and he kisses him exactly the way Aziraphale has wanted to be kissed over… at least the past several centuries.

 

    Perhaps a bit longer.

 

    He had imagined this kiss outside Eden once.

 

    He steps out of his trousers, tosses the towards his laundry hamper, rarely used. He suspects Crowley did vanish his shoes for him, once it became a logistical issue to get his most fitted pair of trousers past them… Certainly he had them when he came in the room.

 

    It hardly matters now. He’s back down to what he’d had on when Crowley first arrived to pick him up, and Crowley looks at him as if he’s a particularly delectable thing.

 

    “Do you often wear this sort of thing?” Crowley asks, sinking down to his knees. He kisses his way down Aziraphale’s belly, through the satin, kisses his way all the way down to the point where genitals are not.

 

    Not currently.

 

    Soon, though.

 

    “I prefer to.” He nods, appreciating the groan muffled against his groin. It’s rather nice even without any physical sex… “I mean… I don’t always wear hose, socks are fine, I like socks in fact. I just… Don’t you miss it sometimes?”

 

    “Miss what?”

 

    “Well, it’s different for you.” Aziraphale sighs. “You’re encouraged to have pleasures of the flesh. Luxuries. I-- I’m not meant to like it. Certainly not meant to engage in vanity.”

 

    “Vanity?”

 

    “Well… _look_ at me. I may not be the top in every category-- yes, yes-- but I have very fine calves, I think you’ll agree.”

 

    “Very fine.” Crowley is quick to agree. “Turn around, give me a look.”

 

    Aziraphale turns. Crowley is all but belly-down on the floor, and his teeth close around Aziraphale’s calf.

 

    “Oh! You _beast_ , put a run in those--”

 

    “I’ll buy you a hundred pairs. Call it a very belated wedding present.” He promises. “Sheer ones. Ones with lace around the top. More with bows on. Colors. Net ones. All sorts.”

 

    “Well…”

 

    “These calves drove me to _distraction_ during the eighteenth century.”

 

    “Those were the days, weren’t they? I mean, for fashion. Men were really men. They weren’t afraid to be beautiful then. Oh… we dressed so beautifully…”

 

    “You’re plenty beautiful now.” Crowley tugs at one bow with his teeth, then nips at Aziraphale’s thigh, over the border between stocking and bare skin.

 

    “Silk and lace, the stockings, the shoes… the craft!” Aziraphale sighs. Over the millenia, it had always been his policy to dress modestly, but well. It reflected poorly on Heaven to be slovenly, but also to be too proud, too flashy… He invested in quality workmanship, perhaps a bit of embroidery on a tunic, perhaps a fine fabric, but…

 

    But then the _clothes_ had happened, really happened, the excesses of embroidery on waistcoats and edging silk frock coats, the way everything was designed to show off the calf-- and his have always been rather nice, he could be allowed that, it wasn’t vanity to merely be pleased to show off one of his better features, was it?-- and the shoes as well, and…

 

    He’d loved it all so much. He’d loved cascades of lace at his wrists, at his throat. He’d loved wearing a full suit of pastel silk embroidered with a garden of flowers. So many gleaming brass buttons... And when he wasn’t in silk, he was in velvet! He’d had the most beautiful mauve velvet suit he’d barely gotten to wear, and then a luggage mishap had lost it to him for ages. He saw it again in a museum some two hundred years hence, not very long ago at all, he’d recognized the very particular embroidery.

 

    He’d been respected, dressed so finely. For the most part he had been. Admired. People took him seriously when he had things to say, he’d been…

 

    It was foolish, yes, but it was fun. It was fun to dress up just to please himself, and fun to be the fancy man about town. And though he was not tempted at that particular point to stray from what he did consider to be his marriage vows, it had been fun to be looked at admiringly-- to be considered desirable. Just to be considered!

 

    He hadn’t paid quite enough attention, to know when men forgot how to dress themselves with style, but he’d caught up in spite of himself. And then he’d found his workaround. A way to feel properly  handsome, a way to recall for himself the sort of man he’d liked being so much.

 

    A nice bonus Crowley should find it so sexually appealing.

 

    “If I bought you pretty things, would you wear them for me?” Crowley rises, and bears him down upon the bed, and kisses him again. “If I bought you silky things, lacy things… Stockings and garters and satin pants?”

 

    “Yes…”

 

    “You look so _good_ in it all, oh, you took up wearing all that lace and you were even more radiant… I’ll _cover_ you in it if you want.”

 

    Crowley’s own clothing has been miracled off. Aziraphale gives him a bit of an exploratory grope, and finds he likes the results.

 

    “I would like that very much.”

 

    “I’ll buy you more satin and lace than you know what to do with.” Crowley nips at his throat. “Oh, oh, angel, let me fuck your thighs and I’ll buy you the whole bloody store…”

 

    Aziraphale thinks back to his series of fantasies during the opera, and nods.

 

    “You may have my thighs for free, dearest-- if I may have your mouth after.”

 

    Crowley shivers. Crowley flashes him a grin of pure delight. Crowley uncaps a bottle of some sort of oil or other, which he hadn’t had a moment ago, and drizzles it over Aziraphale’s thighs, to drip down the insides, liberally coating the span of his thighs from the tops of his stockings up towards the leg holes of the satin briefs. It seems a tad excessive, but then, Crowley seems rather keen about the whole thing.

 

    Aziraphale slides his arms around Crowley, and Crowley slides between Aziraphale’s thighs. He presses them as tightly together as he can-- they’re plush, soft, and Crowley is so hot and so hard between them, he feels as if he is made to mold himself to him. Soft curves conforming to flat planes… gathering him in close and holding him, loving him, enveloping him until they’re _one_ , as they were always meant to be. Or if they were not always meant to be, they’ve decided to be, and…

 

    And they’ve made themselves meant to be! Somewhere across the last near nine hundred years, if not the five thousand odd years prior to that, they’ve made themselves meant to be! And it’s _right_ to hold him like this and feel him like this, and respond to him like this!

 

    Even without manifesting any additional anatomical points of interest, something about this sings to him. His thighs are sensitive, and having Crowley between them feels right. His throat is sensitive, and the slightest scrape of too-sharp teeth thrills him, though not half as much as the tickle of a forked tongue…

 

    He clings to Crowley and allows himself this pleasure, simultaneously both sexual and not. The heat inside him and the joy, the light, bubbling joy.

 

    “Married…” Crowley sighs against his throat.

 

    “Yes…”

 

    “It’s… it’s properly-- real, now, yeah?”

 

    “Yes.”

 

    He pulls back, emotion shining in his golden eyes, slit pupils wider than usual as he takes in every detail of Aziraphale in turn.

 

    “The-- the next nine hundred years’ll be better.” He says, so earnest…

 

    “Come and kiss me. Of course they will be-- we’ll be doing this.”

 

    There’s a grin, with inhuman teeth-- inhuman in sharpness, inhuman in perfection. They are just a little too white. Aziraphale would very much like for them to dig into him again, someplace soft and yielding.

 

    They do nip at his lower lip a bit, which is good enough for him, especially with each nip quickly soothed over by a swipe of tongue.

 

    Somewhere in the past millennium, he’d stopped asking himself if it was wrong to take such comfort in these details-- in fangs, in yellow eyes, in a too-long forked tongue. To find them reassuring, because they had always been a part of him, and always are no matter the shape he takes. Somewhere in the past millennium, he had merely embraced these things as part of falling in love.

 

    Crowley makes the sweetest sound into his mouth, as he comes. It pulses through the energy between them, something of Crowley’s aura pushing into his own in a burst of pleasure. Of _happiness_.

 

    He cleans him up with a thought, and kisses his way down Aziraphale’s throat, his chest.

 

    He kisses _all_ the way down, to make rather impassioned love to the nothing-in-particular beneath the satin. It is enjoyable just the same, even if he is waiting for the briefs to be peeled off before he comes up with something.

 

    Crowley does tug them down, but he leaves the stockings in place.

 

    Aziraphale does his best to recreate what he’d had the last time he’d needed it, and no sooner has he got something than Crowley has a hand on him, a look of delight.

 

    “Well, well, well… what have we here?”

 

    “I do hope it’s obvious.”

 

    Crowley laughs, kissing a spot just above what could generously be described as a navel, if you didn’t know it wasn’t one.

 

    “Prefer to be a grower, not a shower?”

 

    “I don’t know, actually.” Aziraphale’s brow furrows. Crowley kisses his belly again, then nips at it. “I’m a bit rusty having one. It never really got… not much use at all. Er-- not--”

 

    “I’ll just have to be surprised, then.” He says, and proceeds to surprise both of them.

 

    It’s like nothing else-- and Crowley’s tongue is like no one else’s.

 

    Aziraphale isn’t entirely sure how much growing he does, but Crowley is satisfied. Aziraphale himself is _highly_ satisfied.

 

    He’s still got his briefs down around his legs and his stockings on, when Crowley slithers up to sleep against his chest, and he leaves everything as it is, feeling pleasantly debauched.

 

    “Crowley?” He says.

 

    “Mm.”

 

    “Crowley, are you awake?”

 

    “No.”

 

    “Where would you like to go for a honeymoon? We’re rather owed one, aren’t we?”

 

    Crowley doesn’t answer, but then, they have time to figure it out.


End file.
